An Agency-Based Framework for Electronic Business

This paper presents an overview of current trends in Electronic Business (E-business), and how an enterprise can use the Electronic Marketspace for strategic advantage. The role of cooperative information agents is discussed within the context of E-business. An agency-based framework is presented for E-business in the class of logistics and supply systems. Such systems are enjoying wide acceptance in commercial and military application domains, as witnessed by the phenomenal growth in Internet stocks for companies such as Amazon.com. We also show how agent-based systems provide scalable, configurable and evolutionary solutions for such applications.

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